He was born at Great Marlow, Berkshire, the third son of Sir Alexander Hope, and grandson of the second earl of Hopetoun. He was educated at Eton College and Oxford, where he was a contemporary and friend of William Ewart Gladstone and John Henry Newman. In 1838 he was called to the bar. Between 1840 and 1843 he helped to found Trinity College, Glenalmond. He was one of the leaders of the Tractarian movement and entirely in Newman's confidence. In 1851 he was received with Manning into the Roman Catholic Church.
At this time he was making a very large income at the Parliamentary bar, He only commenced serious practice in this branch of his profession in 1843, but by the end of 1845 he stood at the head of it and in 1846 was made a Queen's Counsel. In 1847 he married Miss Lockhart, granddaughter of Sir Walter Scott, ant on her coming into possession of Abbotsford six years later, he assumed the surname of Hope-Scott. He retired from the bar in 1870.
This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.